“Don't hedge, and don't pretend you're not still sober, because I know perfectly well you are. Where does your Overlord friend come from, and what's he doing here?”
“Didn't I tell you?” said Rupert. “I thought I'd explained it to everybody. You couldn't have been around—of course, you were hiding up in the library.” He chuckled in a manner which George found offensive. “It's the library, you know, that brought Rashy here.”
“How extraordinary!”
“Why?” George paused, realizing that this would require tact. Rupert was very proud of his peculiar collection.
“Er—well, when you consider what the Overlords know about science, I should hardly think they'd be interested in psychic phenomena and all that sort of nonsense.”
“Nonsense or not,” replied Rupert, “they're interested in human psychology, and I've got some books that can teach them a lot. Just before I moved here some Deputy Under-Overlord, or Over-Underlord, got in touch with me and asked if they could borrow about fifty of my rarest volumes. One of the keepers of the British Museum Library had put him on to me, it seemed. Of course, you can guess what I said.”
“I can't imagine.”
“Well, I replied very politely that it had taken me twenty years to get my library together. They were welcome to study my books, but they'd darn well have to read them here. So Rashy came along and has been absorbing about twenty volumes a day. I'd love to know what he makes of them.”
George thought this over, then shrugged his shoulders in disgust.
“Frankly,” he said, “my opinion of the Overlords goes down. I thought they had better things to do with their time.”
“You're an incorrigible materialist, aren't you? I don't think Jean will agree at all. But even from your oh- so-practical viewpoint, it still makes sense. Surely you'd study the superstitions of any primitive race you were having dealings with!”
“I suppose so,” said George, not quite convinced. The table-top was feeling hard, so he rose to his feet. Rupert had now mixed the drinks to his satisfaction and was heading back to his guests. Querulous voices could already be heard demanding his presence.
“Hey!” protested George, “just before you disappear there's one other question. How did you get hold of that two-way television gadget you tried to frighten us with?”
“Just a bit of bargaining. I pointed out how valuable it would be for a job like mine, and Rashy passed the suggestion on to the right quarters.”
“Forgive me for being so obtuse, but what is your new job? I suppose, of course, it's something to do with animals.”
“That's right. I'm a super-vet. My practice covers about ten thousand square kilometres of jungle, and as my patients won't come to me, I've got to look for them.”
“Rather a full-time job.”
“Oh, of course it isn't practical to bother about the small fry. Just lions, elephants, rhinos, and so on. Every morning I set the controls for a height of a hundred metres, sit down in front of the screen and go cruising over the countryside. When I find anyone in trouble I climb into my flyer and hope my bedside manner will work. Sometimes it's a bit tricky. Lions and such-like are easy—but trying to puncture a rhino from the air with an anesthetic dart is the devil of a job.”
“RUPERT!” yelled someone from the next room.
“Now look what you've done! You've made me forget my guests. There—you take that tray. Those are the ones with vermouth—I don't want to get them mixed up.”
It was just before sunset that George found his way up to the roof. For a number of excellent reasons he had a slight headache and felt like escaping front the noise and confusion downstairs. Jean, who was a much better dancer than he was, still seemed to be enjoying herself hugely and refused to leave. This annoyed George, who was beginning to feel alcoholically amorous, and he decided to have a quiet sulk beneath the stars.
One reached the roof by taking the escalator to the first floor and then climbing the spiral stairway round the intake of the air-conditioning plant. This led, through a hatchway, out on to the wide, flat roof. Rupert's flyer was parked at one end; the centre area was a garden—already showing signs of running wild—and the rest was simply an observation platform with a few deck chairs placed on it. George flopped into one of these and regarded his surroundings with an imperial eye. He felt very much monarch of all he surveyed.
It was, to put it mildly, quite a view. Rupert's house had been built on the edge of a great basin, which sloped downwards towards the east into swamplands and lakes five kilometres away. Westwards the land was flat and the jungle came almost to Rupert's back-door. But beyond the jungle, at a distance that must have been at least fifty kilometres, a line of mountains ran like a great wall out of sight to north and south.
Their summits were streaked with snow, and the clouds above them were turning to fire as the sun descended on the last few minutes of its daily journey. As he looked at those remote ramparts, George felt awed into a sudden sobriety. The stars that sprang out in such indecent haste the moment the sun had set were completely strange to him. He looked for the Southern Cross, but without success. Though he knew very little of astronomy, and could recognize only a few constellations, the absence of familiar friends was disturbing. So were the noises drifting in from the jungle, uncomfortably close at band. Enough of this fresh air, thought George. I'll go back to the party before a vampire bat, or something equally pleasant, comes flying up to investigate.
He was just starting to walk back when another guest emerged from the hatchway. It was now so dark that George could not see who it was, so he called out,
“Hello, there. Have you had enough of it too?” His invisible companion laughed.
“Rupert's starting to show some of his movies. I've seen them all before.”
“Have a cigarette,” said George.
“Thanks.”
By the flame of the lighter—George was fond of such antiques—he could now recognize his fellow-guest, a strikingly handsome young negro whose name George had been told but had immediately forgotten, like those of the twenty other complete strangers at the party. However, there seemed something familiar about him, and suddenly George guessed the truth.
“I don't think we've really met,” he said, “but aren't you Rupert's new brother-in-law?”
“That's right. I'm Jan Rodricks. Everyone says that Maia and I look rather alike.”
George wondered whether to commiserate with Jan for his newly acquired relative. He decided to let the poor fellow find out for himself; after all, it was just possible that Rupert would settle down this time.
“I'm George Greggson. This is the first time you've been to one of Rupert's famous parties?”
“Yes. You certainly meet a lot of new people this way.”
“And not only humans,” added George. “This is the first chance I've had of meeting an Overlord socially.”
The other hesitated for a moment before replying, and George wondered what sensitive spot he had struck. But the answer revealed nothing.
“I've never seen one before, either—except of course on TV.” There the conversation languished, and after a moment George realized that Jan wanted to be alone. It was getting cold, anyway, so he took his leave and rejoined the party.
The jungle was quiet now; as Jan leaned against the curving wall of the air intake, the only sound he could hear was the faint murmur of the house as It breathed through its mechanical lungs. He felt very much alone, which was the way he wanted to be. He also felt highly frustrated—and that was something he had no desire to be at all.
8
